The effects of the elements in social media content on social media engagement behaviour among youth

Abstract

In the context of the contemporary global business environment, the role of social media has increased drastically especially among youth who have been shown to spend a great deal of time on social media. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of the elements in social media contents (informational content, entertaining content, remunerative content, and relational content) towards social media engagement behaviour and whether or not social media contents are connected to social media engagement behaviour. The study was also conducted to determine the highest category of social media contents that contributes to social media engagement behaviour among youth. The students from the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia were randomly chosen as the sample for this study because of their familiarity with social media various platforms. Online self-completion questionnaire was used as the main instrument and the data received from the respondents was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 26.0. Findings from the study revealed that informational content is the highest category of social media content that contributes to social media engagement behaviour among youth. The Pearson Correlation indicated that the relationships between social media contents and social media engagement behaviour are significant. Moreover, Multiple Linear Regression analysis shows that relational content is the strongest predictor of social media engagement behaviour among youth. The implications of these findings are discussed for researchers and practitioners.

Keywords

• social media
• social media engagement behaviour
• informational content
• entertaining content
• remunerative content
• relational content